The Business of Making Music | #13 Types of TV Music

In this video I talk about the three types of music found in television shows....

1. The score
2. "Needle Drops"
3. Source music
4. Theme
5. Bumpers
6. Library Music

Each have their own qualities and requirements.

For example...

The Business of Making Music | #12 Types of Film Music

In this video I talk about the three types of music found in films.

1. The score
2. "Needle Drops"
3. Source music

Each have their own qualities and requirements.

The Business of Making Music | #11 Intro to "Mailbox Money"

There are many sources of revenue for the musician/songwriter/composer.

Performance Royalties - issued in the US through BMI, ASCAP and SESAC, which are usage on radio, TV, restaurants, concerts, stores, internet, streaming.

Mechanical Royalties - from the writers/publishers share of record/CD sales, iTunes sales, Amazon and others.

CCLI income from churches for using worships songs.

If you are playing music or even pretending to play music (sidelining) on a TV show or in a Movie there is something called "Secondary Market Revenue" that is paid based on your percentage of the entire union contract.

Union jingles sessions pay "mailbox money" as reuse every 13 weeks.

Union record sessions will pay again if your name is attached to a song and that recording is used in a TV, commercial or film or other such use.

The Business of Making Music | #10 Don't Believe Everything You Hear

The Business of Making Music | #9 Guard Your Brand

Here I talk about one of my few regrets in the music business, promoting myself too soon.

The Business of Making Music | #8 Should I Learn To Read Music?

Some good sight reading materials...

A Modern Method for Guitar Vol. 1
A Modern Method for Guitar Vol. 2
A Modern Method for Guitar Vol. 3
A Modern Method for Guitar Vol. 1, 2, & 3
Melodic Rhythms for Guitar
Reading Studies for Guitar
Advanced Reading Studies for Guitar
Advanced Jazz Conception for Saxophone: 20 Jazz Etudes
Tommy Tedesco - For Guitar Players Only

ALSO be on the hunt for 25 cent Flute, Trumpet, Sax etc. studies at thrift stores.

Metronomes (though you could jut a free app on your phone that does this) -

Seiko Metronome
Korg Metronome

The Business of Making Music | #7 My 5 Reasons To Take A Gig

My five reasons are...

For the money
For the experience
For the connections
For friends
For God (or good causes)

The Business of Making Music | #6 Be Your Own College

Can't afford to go to college?  Think you are too old?  Don't have the time?  Be Your Own College.  #1 - Figure out what you need to learn.  #2 - Figure out how to learn it.  #3 - Learn it.  You will probably learn more from #1 and #2 than #3 surprisingly.

The Business of Making Music | #5 Should I Go To Music School?

A very important question.  Should you go to music school?  Will a degree in music make a career in music more likely?  Possibly.  If your school is in a major music town like LA, NY, Nashville, Miami or Atlanta it could help you forge long lasting connections.

The Business of Making Music | #4 Living Below Your Means

One way to guarantee a failure of any endeavor is to run out of money.  A negative cash flow will eventually catch up with you.

The Business of Making Music | #3 Being In The Right Place

Are you where you need to be successful in you musical pursuits?

Here's an article on the subject

The Business of Making Music | #2 Get In The Game

Here are a list of subjects I hope to cover in this series (adding to it all the time)....

Gigging - be prepared
Writing
Publishing
ASCAP/BMI
Session Work
Music Schools
Record deals
Touring
Writing for TV and film
Cue Sheets
BMI Statements
Library Work
Gear Acquisition
NAMM
Practicing - time management
Keep learning
Learn new instruments
Traits of Artists
Traits of successful musicians
Writing Pop Music
Split Sheets
Cue Sheets
YouTube
Streaming - Spotify, et al.
Social Media - Instagram and Twitter
Joining the Union
Being where the action is
Learning ProTools/Logic
Getting and Keeping Students
Contracting
Be Open to a Different Career in   the Business
Be Upwardly Mobile
Home Studios
Making Connections
Getting in the Game
Live Small (below your means)
Producing
Film Sessions vs Record sessions
Powerful People
Don’t Believe Everything
It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you
Take Yourself to College


Here are list of jobs I've done in and related to the business of music (adding to this list all the time too!)...

Working in a Record Store
Working in a Guitar Store
Running Sound at a Nightclub
Teaching Private Lessons
Teaching Clinics
Teaching a Class at USC
Guitar Coaching Actors
Copy Work (doing charts)
Playing Jazz Gigs
Playing Top 40 Gigs
Playing Classical Music at a Restaurant
Playing Weddings (classical guitar)
Playing Rock Gigs
Playing in Cover Bands
Playing in Original Bands
Playing in a Pit Band (for plays/musicals)
Playing in Worship Bands
Leading Worship
Writing Worship Songs
Writing Rock Songs
Writing Classical Songs
Writing Pop Songs
Writing Music for Television
Writing Music for Film
Being a Music Director
Being a Contractor
Playing on Records/CD's
Playing on Movies
Playing on TV Shows
Playing on Jingles
Sidelining in TV Shows (on camera appearances)
Producing Records
Developing Artists

The Business of Making Music | #1 Something to Think About

NEW YOUTUBE SERIES!

Are you struggling trying to make it in music?  Maybe you're meant to play a different role.  And if you find success in that different role you'll no doubt find it more satisfying going "somewhere" than going "nowhere". 

Here is LA Reid's interview on Charlie Rose.

High-Strung Song No. 1

I wrote this to kind of high light the intrinsic beauty of the tuning. Mostly played on the top four strings in 6/8 time. The pattern is a very simple up and down sweep of 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but often sounds more complex. Notice the frequency of unisons ringing out against each other, something that would be difficult to accomplish on any instrument. Tight piano-like clusters abound as well.

I used my Larivee Parlor guitar with the high set of an Elixir 12-string set (use the remaining strings for a normally tuned guitar) and a Wegen Pick. 

©2013 by Tom Strahle, BMI

Cool Site - The Perfect Rhyme Site...

In fact it's called...

Perfect Rhyme

For you songwriter's out there. I was looking for a site that did soft rhymes, you know ones that are close enough. Really open up the options.

Songwriting is Harder Than It Sounds

Or at least coming up with original melodies is harder than it sounds...

12 Songs That Sound Alike

Me and My Writing Buddy Jeff

Here we are having fun writing and Jeff is having fun with Final Cut Pro...

ASCAP vs. BMI vs. SESAC

Article here.

I'm BMI by the way. Because that's what the Beatles are.

"It's not like it use to be"

There is one thing that is constant in the entertainment business and that is change.

Take movies - Silent films, then talkies, then color, 3D, then video, then DVD, then digital distribution.  All within a hundred years. Less.

Television - B & W, Color, VHS/Beta, cable, satellite.  All in less than 60 years.

Music - 78's, 33's, 45's, 8-track, cassette, CD, digital.

Every time a major change happens we are told this is the end of the business as we know it.  Of course it is.  And this is a good thing.  That is if you are adaptable.  In fact change provides great opportunities for those have the foresight to get ahead of the curve and take a chance.  Change gives you a chance. If you were the first in town to buy a 24-track tape machine in the 70's or the first digital editing bay in the 80's, or the first ProTools rig in the 90's you probably still have a career today, if you kept being first.  No one is going to intentionally surrender their business to you.  You have to find that gap.  That entrance.  That service that no one is providing.  Not just once, but the smart ones do it throughout their careers.  Adapt or die.  It's very Darwinian.  I believe it as applied here.

When cassettes came about the record companies worried that people would stop buying records.  That kind of happened.  But then digital CD's came out, and everybody, including myself, bought replacement copies of many of their albums.  You can't hardly find cassettes any more.  The giants in the industry, ie. the labels, could control the medium and create the next "need".  But now that digital exists, it's gotten much more difficult for the majors to affect technological sea changes.  We still don't know the  ultimate result of that yet.  Won't for a while.  But it's opened many opportunities for even hobbyists to get their music made and out there.  I, as a session player, work for a lot of hobbyists.  Truth be told, they sometimes have more money.

I've been told for almost thirty years, regarding session work in LA, "it's not like it use to be". I understand that there are some guys hurting because they were making a lot more in the seventies and eighties then today.  Though to some degree I say, "thank God it's not the same!"

In the sixties there were basically three networks.  Today there are over 500 cable channels. Smart players built a studio and started writing.  More back end income in writing too.

In the sixties the "Wrecking Crew" did a majority of the good work.  Who's the Wrecking Crew?  They were a group of about 30 musicians, Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, Carol Kaye, among many others who played on a majority of the major records produced in LA.  Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas, The Monkees, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, The Partridge Family, Phil Spector records, and many others.  I heard Hal Blaine say in an interview that at one point he was doing six "three hour" sessions a day!  They had cots in the studios for the "crew" members to sleep on between gigs.  Aside from being unhealthy, it's just not fair.

There is an excellent documentary about the Wrecking Crew.  If you can get a chance to see it I highly recommend it.  It's interesting, when I saw it, my wife and I had two very different emotional reactions afterwards.  I opined for such days filled with cool work with great players... the "old" days.  She was just proud of me that I made a living doing what I do.

A large part of why I moved to LA was because of Wrecking Crew member Tommy Tedesco's monthly column in Guitar Player magazine in the 70's call "Studio Log".  He would humorously talk about a film, TV or record date he had recently done, include a bit of a chart and tick off the instruments played, the leader, the time and most importantly the pay.

My career has morphed from a fledgling one into an embryonic one, mainly out of necessity, sometimes by choice and occasionally by force.  But I keep my musical and creative tendons limber enough to change directions when the seas "suggest" it.  My career has been on a slow arc.

Some resources...
Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew: The Story of the World's Most Recorded Musician (Book)
Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story
Tommy Tedesco - Confessions of a Guitar Player
For Guitar Players Only
Tommy Tedesco: Anatomy of a Guitar Player
Carol Kaye Bass DVD Course